At The Feet Of Giants
by PseudonymousBotched
Summary: Phoenix and her little brother, Dylan II are exploring a city just before sunset. Their parents have told them stories of what the world was like when it was filled with people, but their reactions are utterly different. Oneshot. First fanfiction written. Hope you enjoy!


October 22, 2015 ~ Scribblers

Phoenix and Dylan II Ride

Our parents told us stories of what the cities were like when they were filled with people. Phoenix doesn't believe the stories. To her, the world has always been this empty. She burns so brightly that she can't see anything else but herself.

I am not like my older sister. I am more cautious, and more slow. While my sister soars overhead on dark wings, I crouch on the blackened street and turn over some rubble with a stick. The hidden and buried places in the world are where I can find things, things that prove that the old world was real. From underneath something burned and in pieces, I lift an object the size of my hand. Mom told me objects like these were called phones, and that they don't work anymore.

In the shattered-mirror surface of the phone, I see the reflection of my sister landing behind me and loosly folding her wings.

"Are you collecting more junk again, Dylan?" she says.

"It's not junk," I say.

Phoenix walks up right behind me. Her breath warms the back of my neck. "Gimme," she says, and easily snatches the phone from my hand.

"This is absolutely useless," she says, and drops the phone on the cracked up asphalt. "Come on, let me show you something actually interesting."

She takes off, assured that I'll follow her. But first, I pick up the phone and impulsively put it down the front of my shirt, as I have no pockets. The pink, sparkly plastic case rests against my chest.

I unfurl my own wings and follow my sister, my stomach falling as I push away the air and gain altitude.

Phoenix and I spiral around this old tower that has most of the windows busted out.

"Hear that?" Phoenix yells to me. I glance at her and the afternoon sun behind her nearly blinds me. "That big sound?"

There is something in the air, a deep groaning that feels like it starts in my bones and quakes outward. "What is it?" I yell back.

Phoenix draws her wings close and speeds up, but I catch a glimpse of her dangerous smile.

She takes me to the top of the tower, where the wind scrubs the clouds. The roof is abrasive under my feet. As I'm shaking some stiffness out of my wings, I fail to notice Phoenix picking up a metal pole. I do notice when she strikes the edge of the roof with the pole.

"Wake up already!" she calls out. Clang! "Wake up and die!"

I race to her side and try to tug the sun-hot metal pole out of her hands.

"It's the sound of a dying building," Phoenix says, easily keeping the pole away, eyes distant. "I thought you sould see it for yourself."

As if my sister ordered it, the tower groans and shivers underneath my feet. I fling my arms and wings out for balance, but Phoenix stands with her toes curling into open space on the edge of the roof.

Instinctively, I leap up and flutter in the air to watch as my sister stands fearlessly on the shaking roof.

Slowly, the tower cries out in a series of loud crunches and cracks, and it slides off the foundation and inexorably down, like a tsunami of concrete and steel girders.

My sister whoops, scrambling to stay on top of the crumbling roof. For a minute, it looks like she's surfing on the falling building.

The tower falls to the ground, sending up a huge plume of ash and dirt. I lose sight of Phoenix. My heart is scurrying inside my chest, knocking against the broken phone in my shirt.

Then I see her wings flashing inside the plume, struck by the sunlight, and with powerful wingbeats she rises. With that same dangerous smile on her face as usual, she flies up to me.

"Well?" she asks imperially. There is a dark smudge on her cheeks. "What do you think of tower surfing?"

I look down at the still shifting rubble.

"It's gonna happen anyway. Might as well have fun with it," Phoenix says defensively. "Everything about the old world is dying. Keep that in mind when you next go looking for junk."

She stiffens her wings and wheels away. "Let's go home."

Home, where Mom sits with paper and the black feather quill and records her memories of the old world. Home, where Dad sits on the beach and scales fishes, sunlight falling on the faint grey in his hair. I get the not-talking thing from him.

I want to be a rememberer like my mom. I'm really curious about the old world, in a way that Phoenix never was. As I follow in my sister's airwake, I feel the comatose phone knocking against my chest, making my skin warm and sweaty. I think about the collapsing tower, I giant falling at the feet of other unsteady giants.

The old world may be dying, but I can hold it's hand while it goes.

-Dylan II


End file.
